Are you carving your jack-o-lantern today and wondering what to do with the stringy mess that somehow ended up in the middle of your nice pumpkin? It is tempting to throw them away, but don’t! Dogs love these (in small doses), but giving them to the dog directly can result in a (huge, sticky) mess!

If you prefer not to spend the evening cleaning pumpkin goo off of your carpets, walls and the dog itself, I suggest these neat, portable dog cookies.

This recipe truly doesn’t have measurements, because every pumpkin is different. Some have more guts than others, and sometimes the insides will be more or less wet.

Ingredients:

• The stringy insides and scrapings from one pumpkin
• About twice as much whole wheat flour as pumpkin insides (plus extra for rolling)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees f
2. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or a silicone mat
3. Use a blender or food processor to break up the pumpkin insides
4. Combine the pumpkin and the flour and knead to create a dough – if the dough is too wet, add flour, and if the dough is too dry, add a bit of water
5. Role out the dough to about 1/2 inch thick – feel free to add lots of flour here, this dough will be STICKY!
6. Place on cookie sheet – don’t worry about leaving too much space between the cookies, as long as they aren’t touching they should be fine
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until well hardened
8. Leave in the oven with the door closed while the oven cools to further harden cookies

Notes:

• As always, please make sure not to feed your dog anything that doesn’t agree with them! Some dogs have sensitive stomachs and may not do well with flour, mine doesn’t seem to have that problem.